The former Stanford tight end, who signed last week with the New Orleans Saints, claimed in his introductory news conference that some of his former teammates “went along for the ride” when the Colts struggled through a bad 2015 season.

One of those former teammates, linebacker Jerrell Freeman, went off on Fleener on Sunday night.

Freeman, who also left Indianapolis to sign with the Chicago Bears, texted Bob Kravitz of WTHR Sports in Indianapolis to respond to Fleener”s words. Kravitz posted the gist of Freeman”s texts while cleaning up some of the language.

“Fleener, he didn”t have the (guts). That (bleep) pisses me off. And he must”ve been looking in the mirror when he did the interview.

“I despise guys like that. That”s what little girls do, talk about you when you”re not around. I”m a grown man. If I see something I don”t like, I”m going to go have a face-to-face convo with that player/players and we are going to get an understanding! I feel like I had a hand in building what”s over there (in Indianapolis), so he”s (bleeping) on me, too.”

Freeman closed out his texts by writing, -You can print all that, brotha!””

It”s probably fortunate for Fleener that the Bears and Saints are not scheduled to meet — at least not in the regular season — in 2016.